The strike took place in over 60 towns and cities across the UK. The students missed school and asked the Government to declare a climate emergency and take active steps to face the problem.

Three were arrested, two for obstruction of the highway and one for a public order offence.

Parents were divided on whether their children should strike on the last day before half term.

Some children boarded an open top city tour bus bringing roads to gridlock and the sound was deafening from chanting “We’re not moving”.

The students want the government to acknowledge the ecological crisis and reform the curriculum, so Climate Change is an educational priority.

The Green Party MP Caroline Lucas described the students as ‘inspiring’ whilst Theresa May urged pupils to stop wasting teacher’s time

The Youth Strike 4 Climate has already been seen in Australia, Switzerland and Belgium and was inspired by Great Thunberg (16) who protests every Friday outside Sweden’s parliament to urge leaders to tackle climate change.

The Samaritans are of course immensely interested in protecting children and their emotional wellbeing.

The Samaritans CEO Ruth Sutherland believes we need to ease pressure on children by showing them how to manage their emotional state.

Children need to be able to cope with life’s ups and downs. This is a learning process and the more children are protected and cossetted by their parents/schools – the more they will not become resilient to face life’s disappointments.

The Samaritans set up Developing Emotional Awareness and Listening (DEAL) for schools to use, which is aimed at children over 14.

It is important to be able to recognise signs and symptoms of mental health issues.

The NSPCC outlines some signs.

Becoming withdrawn from friends and family

Persistent low mood and unhappiness

Tearfulness and irritability

Worries that stop them from carrying out day to day tasks

Sudden outbursts of anger directed at themselves or others

Loss of interest in activities that they used to enjoy

Problems eating or sleeping

There are more organisations offering help to suicidal children or children with mental Health issues

Young Minds offer support to adults to help them care for children with mental health care issues

SelfharmUK supported people who self-harm.

Family Lives speaks to any carer who needs advice to cope with self-harm and depression and it’s effect on other family members.

Papyrus speaks to young people having suicidal thoughts.

What is the cause for the poor mental health of UK children?

Traumatic events can trigger problems like moving home/school or the birth of a new sibling. Some children are excited by new situations, but others find it hard to accept the change.

Other factors can contribute to mental health issues, parents with similar health issues could influence their children, experiencing death of someone very close to them, divorcing parents, bullying, poverty or discriminations.

The most common mental health problems seen in UK youngsters are depression, self-harm, anxiety disorder, PTSD, hyperactivity and eating disorders.

]]>The Selfie filters are getting widely used and are leading people to seek surgery so they can become that ‘filtered’ image of themselves.

Maybe the filter changes the shape of your nose that you have hated for ever or makes you look slimmer.

In real life this can become a huge problem, encouraging individuals to sit in a certain position in real life so their real flaws are hidden.

The selfie becomes more important than the actual person.

The word is dysmorphia.

One cosmetic doctor called Tijion Esho, coined the phrase “Snapchat dysmorphia”. He noticed that people no longer brought in pictures of celebrities that they wanted to emulate but their own filtered selfies of themselves.

The app used on Snapchat is called Facetune, creating huge eyes and perfect skin.

Another doctor spoke of an individual coming to see him asking to look like her filtered image as when potential dates met her, they exclaimed that she didn’t look like her online profile. He told her no.

The rise of fillers has been promoted by celebrities. Fillers are less invasive but also comes with risks. There are little regulations and no minimum age for these treatments. Many surgeons refuse to treat people under 20 but many more do not.

Once one instant fixer is ‘fixed’ the individual can become tempted to try another one, further distorting their real facial features.

But what is the individual correcting the image or the reality?

Superdrug offer Botox in your lunchtime and at a cheap price. Recently they agreed to introduce mental health screening for people using the service.

De Neelam Vashi wrote about BDD being linked to selfie dysmorphia says there needs to be further studies.

The onset of BDD starts in adolescence, the general rule of diagnosis being you think about your appearance for more than an hour a day. People with BDD take selfies because they believe they are hideous.

Danny Bowman in 2014 was the first selfie addict reported in the UK spending hours in front of the mirror and dropping out of school to start taking hundreds of selfies a day.

Trying to kill himself in the end, he was finally diagnosed with BDD and was restricted using his phone.

Now he campaigns on issues relating to mental health and positive body images.

He is concerned about the impact of Instagram with friends posting facetuned pictures of themselves.

He says

“It has become such a normal thing that people don’t see what they’re doing as abnormal’.

]]>The size of my waist has nothing to do with my worth.http://veryintelligentprincess.com/thought-of-the-week/size-waist-nothing-worth/
Mon, 28 Jan 2019 06:10:48 +0000http://veryintelligentprincess.com/?p=1628The post The size of my waist has nothing to do with my worth. appeared first on VIP.
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]]>21-01-19http://veryintelligentprincess.com/guest-posts/21-01-19/
Mon, 21 Jan 2019 06:57:14 +0000http://veryintelligentprincess.com/?p=1619January 21stis officially the most miserable day of the year. Is this just for adults or does it affect children as well? The blues could be seen to arrive because there are credit card bills to deal with, … Read more »

The blues could be seen to arrive because there are credit card bills to deal with, taxes to pay and the festive season is over. The weather is grim and back to work can all contribute to the gloomy feeling in January. Adding to the pressure, one might have taken on a new year resolution, hard to keep and easy to break.

How could any of the above affect children? The most obvious one is going back to school. Although it is always nice to catch up with friends, exchange Christmas gift stories but the early mornings and routine of endless lessons, is not everyone’s idea of fun.

How can a family ease the January blues?

There are a few things that might help.

Hiding away at home is not a good idea, indulging in Tv and fatty foods. Force yourself to go out and meet people.

De-clutter the house, book a holiday for the summer and set yourself some goals, will all help you sighing at the grey skies.

Do some exercise that you enjoy, walking the dog, using apps that encourage you in your progress but do them all together as a family.

Exercise really helps mental health and cost nothing is you use parks and outside spaces. Most people have spent too much over Christmas, so this is the time to spend time doing activities that make you feel good and cost very little.

Daylight will really add to your good mood, especially if the sun is out. Vitamin D ramps up our serotonin hormones which make us feel happy.

Keep away from as much social media as possible, seeing your friends on the beach in the Caribbean will not lift your spirits.

Seeing holier than thou friends who are incredibly rich/successful and impossibly happy will not lighten your mood.

]]>There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.http://veryintelligentprincess.com/thought-of-the-week/far-far-better-things-ahead-leave-behind/
Mon, 21 Jan 2019 06:02:04 +0000http://veryintelligentprincess.com/?p=1623The post There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind. appeared first on VIP.
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]]>Depression linked to social mediahttp://veryintelligentprincess.com/guest-posts/depression-linked-social-media/
Tue, 08 Jan 2019 10:05:35 +0000http://veryintelligentprincess.com/?p=1613The more time spent on social media, the more depressed children are becoming, is this the struth? Girls more so than boys, it appears. Girls have a higher rate of depression than boys and it is being linked … Read more »

]]>The more time spent on social media, the more depressed children are becoming, is this the struth?

Girls more so than boys, it appears.

Girls have a higher rate of depression than boys and it is being linked to the amount of time they spend on social media and resulting in bullying on line and poor sleep.

Social Media seems to push them further towards low self-esteem.

The Millennium Cohort Study interviewed 11,000 14-year olds to find that nearly 40% of girls who spend more than five hours a day on social media show symptoms of depression,

Two in five girls are on social media at least three hours per day as compared to a fifth of the boys.

One in ten boys do not use social media at all whereas only 4% of girls said the same.

Girls are more likely to be victims of online harassment.

Girls in the report suffered more than boys from disrupted sleep patterns, which also correlates to the excessive social media usage and clinical signs of depression.

Children are staying up late to use social media and sleep with their phones beside them, buzzing and alerting them constantly.

Prof Sir Simon Wessely (ex-president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists) says it is not definite that social media usage causes poor mental health, although the evidence is starting to point in that direction.

Anne Longfield the children’s commissioner for England is warning that children as young as nine “are becoming almost addicted to ‘likes’ as a form of social validation that makes them happy, and many are increasingly anxious about their online images and ‘keeping up appearances’.

The problem is a result and mixture of online, biological and social factors,

Seeing others online happy and successful makes the individual feel awful if they are not having a full, fun and interesting life.

Skinny influencers are obviously a key factor in any body issues.

Real connections are the way forward and children have to stop hiding behind messages and smiling social media posts and get out there and touch the world.